[MoP - 5.3] Fear The Beard - Fury Warrior Guide [Archive]

Staff note: This guide is outdated but kept up for Archival purposes due to the positive feedback it received when it was relevant.

Welcome to my guide on Fury Warriors in Mists of Pandaria, updated for Patch 5.3 - Throne of the Thunder King!

In this guide I'll go over the meat and guts of Fury Warriors in Mists of Pandaria.

The focus of this guide is to keep it short and sweet for new Fury Warriors. If you consider yourself an experienced Warrior you probably won't find much information in this guide that you don't already know.

I. Talents & Glyphs

Talents:Here's a short version of all of the Warrior talents in Mists of Pandaria(* marks the talents I prefer)

The choices here are up to you. I prefer Juggernaut because I like the old model of Arms charge with the shorter CD, but many also prefer Double Time! Warbringer won't really be all that useful to you in a raiding environment, but it could have it's uses in 5 man dungeons(Challenge Modes specifically - can never have too many stuns in Challenge Modes)

A second interrupt that's AoE. Fairly self explanatory. Piercing Howl can be good on certain fights that need slows, but there's usually always a class in a raid/party that can apply a slow so you shouldn't have to worry about it.

Dragon Roar is the better choice for both AoE and Single Target damage. I recommend popping Bloodbath and Dragon Roar together to ramp up the DoT extremely fast and get it ticking hard right away. The difference is even more noticeable if you're SMF.

I go with Bloodbath over Avatar because it has much better uptime and damage. Nothing else really compares to it, so I just recommend sticking with it for everything. I did find uses for Storm Bolt and Avatar for Brawler's Guild, but that was pretty much it. I never use anything other than Bloodbath during raids.

Minor: Minor Glyphs are purely for looks, so it doesn't really matter what you choose here.

II. Stat Priorities & Reforging

Stats:The stat priorities for Fury in Mists of Pandaria are as follows:

Hit/Exp to 7.5% > Crit > Str > Mastery > Hit > Haste

Reforging:Once you're hit and expertise capped, you're going to want to try and make sure you have Crit on every piece of gear that you can. Just make sure you follow the stat priority list above. A really great add-on that does literally everything for you is ReforgeLite. I highly recommend you get this and just use the Fury preset on it, it does everything for you.

Note: In Throne of Thunder you will most likely be over hit cap due to the insane amount of hit on the gear from ToT, but it's fine!

III. Gems & Enchants

Gems:Gems in Mists are a little different than previous expansions. Secondary stats are now doubled on gems, so instead of a gem being 80 str and 80 crit, it's 80 str and 160 crit! This is very important for us Fury Warriors. Gemming should go as follows:

As a side note: perfect versions of the green quality gems have the same stats as the blue quality gems! This can save you some gold if you're lucky enough to find some deals on the AH. For instance, Perfect Smooth Sunstone is equal to Smooth Sun's Radiance!

"Pre-potting" means you use a potion right before a pull so that it doesn't incur the 1 minute cooldown before the fight starts. This will help your initial burst out a lot, and it'll give you an opportunity to be able to use a second potion during the fight! I recommend saving the second potion for your burn phase or execute phase.

V. Rotation & Priority System

Alright, all done with the boring stuff(mostly)! Time to learn how to properly hack 'n' slash your way through Azeroth.

Single Target Priority System:The basic model of the priority system goes:

You should always focus on hitting BT on cooldown(hitting BT on cooldown means you're hitting it every 4.5 seconds). If you don't, your DPS will suffer. If you need to practice, just sit at a dummy for a couple minutes and just hit nothing but BT on cooldown to get the feel for the timing of it. It'll look like this:

You should be careful though, Rage can be extremely tight during Execute phase. If you have the rage to do it, during a CS window you should only be using Execute(CS -> Execute x3) If mechanics permit it, you can swap Berserker Stance for extra rage (this applies to any fight at any time really, as you should always be maximizing your rage income, but I'll go into more detail about Battle Stance and Berserker Stance in the FAQ section).

AoE Priority System:Our AoE still has a lot to due with Meat Cleaver, but it's different now. Every time we Whirlwind, we gain a stack of Meat Cleaver, which increases the number of targets our Raging Blow hits by 1 per stack(up to 3 additional targets, 4 targets total). Cleave isn't very good at all, so don't worry about that too much unless you have a ton of rage that you somehow can't spend by smashing Whirlwind. If you want insane AoE burst, use Bloodbath + Dragon Roar, followed by Whirlwind 2-3 times and then Raging Blow, then follow the AoE priority system. You'll be able to drink all the tears of your group as you blow past all of them in DPS. Anyways, the priority system for AoE is as follows:

VI. Buffs & Cooldowns

In this section, I'll go over the Buffs & Cooldowns of a Fury Warrior.

Let's start with perhaps the most important utility skill of Warriors in Mists of Pandaria: Banners! Warriors have the choice between three War Banners at any given time that all share a separate 3 minute cooldown: Skull Banner, Demoralizing Banner, and Mocking Banner. You can pretty much ignore Mocking Banner as Fury, as you won't need to be AoE taunting anything at any time ever in a 5 man dungeon or raid. However, Skull Banner and Demoralizing Banner are extremely useful CDs! Skull Banner increases critical strike damage of any player within 40 yards by 20%! This is an incredible cooldown to have. You should use Skull Banner every time it comes off cooldown to help with raid DPS (Especially now that Recklessness was given a 3 min CD - the two line up perfectly now! Thanks GC). Demoralizing Banner applies a debuff to any enemies within 30 yards that decreases ANY of their damage done by 10%.

Next I'll go over Recklessness. It's now a 3 minute cooldown that increases your critical strike chance of your special attacks by 30% for 12 seconds. Warrior Tier 14 DPS 4 Set Bonus lowers the cooldown by 150 seconds(makes it a 1.5 minute cooldown instead of a 3 minute cooldown), which is the best thing since sliced bread).

As stated above, Recklessness should be used with Skull Banner during burn phases of the fight. The two now line up perfectly, whether you're using the T14 bonus or not!

Next up is your T6 Talent Choice! If you chose Bloodbath(which you should have), you'll want to try and use it with Recklessness and Skull Banner, and after that you should be using it every single time it comes off cooldown. Note: If you aren't going to be using Recklessness and Skull Banner at the start of a fight because you need to save them for the burn phase: you should STILL be using Bloodbath at the start of the fight and on CD after that. Use your best judgement for it.

Another cooldown that I feel that needs to be mentioned is Berserker Rage. It now causes your character to become enraged, generating 10 rage and increasing physical damage dealt by 10% for 6 seconds! You can either use it every time it comes off cooldown or save it for when Bloodthirst doesn't crit and you need a Raging Blow proc.

VII. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Q: Single Minded Fury or Titan's Grip?A: Technically, SMF pulls ahead of TG in terms of DPS. However, the margin is close enough that it comes down to whichever weapons you have/whichever you prefer. If you have better 2h weapons than 1h weapons, go TG. If you have better 1h weapons than 2h weapons, go SMF!

Yup, that simple. If you key bind it, it'll make life even easier to swap between the two to maximize the rage you receive!

3.Q: Holy crap, new patch and new tier bonus!!! When is it safe to break T14 4 Piece bonus for T15 2 Piece bonus?!A: Well, it's a little complicated. Without having to go into too much math and boring detail, it basically comes down to the fight. It also depends on which tier pieces you have, for instance, the normal tier leggings give 1009 crit, so obviously they're better than the T14 legs that give no crit without reforging.

4.Q: I hear Arms is better than Fury right now, what's up with that?A: Depending on your gear level, this can be true. It's close enough to the point where you can play whichever spec you have the best weapons for, or whichever spec you're going to be doing the most damage that you possibly can. No point in swapping to Arms if you know you're going to play worse than you would as Fury!

VIII. Extras

Add OnsHere's a list of add ons I use, * marks the add ons I recommend you get:

WeakAuras* - A bit complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it it's an EXTREMELY useful add on. It can be used for a ton of things, I'll let you guys figure out the good parts! I mainly use it to track raid CDs/procs.ReforgeLite* - I'm not kidding when I say this is the most useful add on I have. All you do is select the Fury preset and it'll calculate your stats and it not only shows you what to reforge, it does it for you. Extremely useful add on that I recommend to everyone.DBM* - Easily the most helpful add on to any new player. Tells you important boss mechanics, when to not stand in stuff, etc. Skada* - A good add on that you can use to help monitor your progress as you get more and more gear. It tracks a multitude of important things that go on during an encounter. The only thing you'll probably want to get it for is to monitor Damage Done on each fight. ElvUI- Complete UI revamp, definitely not necessary but it cleans up the UI and there's a lot of customization involved.ElvUI Class Monitor - A plug in for ElvUI that adds a big rage bar on your screen that you can move around to help see your rage easier. Also has other options like tracking the duration of your banners, among other things.ExtraCD - Monitors the internal cooldown of trinkets/spells.Mik's Scrolling Battle Text - Replaces the normal floating combat text and neatly splits incoming/outgoing damage to the side. You can also change how and where it scrolls.

All of these can be found on curse.com!

ConclusionThat's all, good luck and feel free to leave any comments/suggestions in the comments section.

Comments

Comment by Padsoldier

list the cooldowns/buffs available for a warrior (you haven't said a word about banners), and when to use them

you didn't tell which food/potion/flask/elixirs to use

Comment by Zoeteklem

Hey Offense, great guide! This guide will help me get back into my DPSing again with my warrior. Good use of formatting too and linking all the applicable (wowhead) words so we know what you are talking about.

I have seen on a lot of other Fury rotations that there was a * next to both WS and HS. WS was only if it proc'ed (of course with Bloodsurge) and HS with the key rage dump (like you have).

Any thoughts? Thanks again, and great job!

Comment by smackthekids

One thing I do a little differently is *if* I have a lot of rage, I will Colossus Smash, BT, RB x 2 if both crit, but then Berserker Rage, then RB, allowing me to fit 3 RB in 1 Colossus Smash debuff, and since my rage will not have gone down, add 2 heroic strikes in there. Doing this, I've been #1 DPS in EVERY raid I've done for at least 3 months, and I'm not that well geared at all. The burst u can get in during 1 Colossus Smash can be insane, just follow rotation above EXCEPT when CS that applied is a crit. If CS and BT didn't crit, continue above rotation.

Comment by agentcoco

hello offense. I really found your guide usefull and i have just started playing fury. but i do seem to have some problems on the dps area. as of now in lfr, my avg. dps is about 60-70k. my ilvl is 488 and a few people find that a bit low. i have been trying to solve my problem for some time but i cant realle find the error :P could you try and battle.net me? arderius dragonblight eu

thanks for the inconvenience arderius.

Comment by Attis

As of 5.4 stormbolt deals damage both from MH and OH. What do you think 'bout it?